27 June 2008

jumbled.

i accidentally made the bed just now. i hadn't intended to but i was wandering around the room deep in thought and before i could stop myself i was tossing the last of the pillows into place. it was similar to those moments when you're driving along and suddenly you find yourself descending your exit and having no recollection whatsoever of the past five miles that led you there.

but i finished The Great Gatsby last night so i suppose there was no real reason to leave the bed unmade all day. i enjoyed the book a lot and have a faint remembrance of having read it (or sections of it) sometime in school. jeremy said he read it in seventh grade which sort of amazes me because it's a bit mature in content for a twelve year old i think. then again, maybe not. as much or more than i enjoyed the actual story, i really loved the vividness of the writing. it inspired me, perhaps more than Franny and Zooey did...and actually i can say that i dug into it a bit more too. i think i resonate with romance sometimes more than i do with art, though i kind of believe they are one and the same.

yesterday Eli and I ventured out into the baking sun for a trip to the small town just beyond the next even smaller town. [on the way home we passed a sign in the edge of a yard that read: "Goat Crossing." Who even knew that such a sign existed?] While we browsed a few little shops, Eli in his bright orange umbrella stroller, a plastic baggie sat on the car's front seat with a remnant of cheddar cheese leftover from his mid-journey snack. when we returned to the car, the cheese had melted inside the bag into flat gooey blobs as if pressed inside a grilled cheese sandwich. I remembered a line from Gatsby in which he described the heat of the day as broiling.

we had just been grabbing an iced drink inside a coffee shop where Eli had proceeded to chirp and squak like various zoo animals and happily scream "dadadada!!" at the top of his little lungs for no apparent reason. while rushing out to avoid the stares, we paused for a moment to listen to three men intermittently sipping iced tea and playing guitars and harmonicas. the youngest was singing lines from that Moldy Peaches song at the end of Juno (which I've also seen re-created in a commercial for some vacation destination called Atlantis.) Eli was mesmerized for a solid five minutes and it was the quietest I'd heard him all afternoon.

for just over six dollars total i picked up ten little printer's stamps, and this flower picture which i placed upstairs on the top landing next to my favorite red chair.

tonight i am making a curry dish for my friend Lisa who is coming over for a visit. and because i dragged Eli around to places unappealing to active little boys all day yesterday, i promised him that today is a day just for HIM...so after he wakes up we're off to find the playground and that much-anticipated ice cream cone or two.